Massacre witnesses prep for U.S. trial

Thursday

Mar 14, 2013 at 12:01 AMMar 14, 2013 at 10:14 AM

TACOMA, Wash. - Afghan civilians who witnessed a massacre of unarmed villagers in Kandahar province last year recently visited a U.S. Army base in Washington state to prepare for an upcoming court-martial of the U.S. soldier accused in the slayings, the Army said yesterday.

TACOMA, Wash. — Afghan civilians who witnessed a massacre of unarmed villagers in Kandahar province last year recently visited a U.S. Army base in Washington state to prepare for an upcoming court-martial of the U.S. soldier accused in the slayings, the Army said yesterday.

Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, a decorated veteran of four combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, is charged with capital murder in the killings of 16 civilians, most of them women and children, near his military post in Afghanistan last March.The victims were killed in their family compounds, the worst case of civilian slaughter blamed on a rogue U.S. soldier since the Vietnam War.

Military prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for Bales, a father of two from Lake Tapps, Wash.Bales grew up in Ohio and attended Norwood High School in Hamilton County. He studied economics at Ohio State from 1993 to 1996.Six Afghan civilians whom prosecutors plan to call as witnesses for the court-martial traveled last week to Joint Base Lewis-McChord near Tacoma to meet with attorneys for both sides in the case, Army spokesman Gary Dangerfield said.

No formal depositions were taken before they went home, and the six are expected to return in September to testify in the trial, Dangerfield said.

Five of them saw the violence in question and testified by video link during Bales’ pretrial hearing in November, Dangerfield said. The sixth witness was a man whose connection to the shootings was not revealed by the Army.

Bales faces 16 counts of premeditated murder and six counts of attempted murder, as well as charges of assault and possessing and using steroids and alcohol while deployed. He has yet to enter a plea.

Defense attorney John Henry Browne has said Bales suffered post-traumatic stress disorder and a brain injury.